[ejharrington]

There are a lot of shady characters in this hobby. I don't think anyone would deny that. It's no different than the stock market / government / etc.

After the 2008 financial meltdown there were a lot of villians identified. But I always have thought the worst offenders were the credit rating agencies that put their stamp of approval on mortgage-backed securities that should have been rated as junk. Their only job was to do due diligence and they failed, either out of complacency or corruption or both.

There is a lot of shady stuff that goes on in this hobby. Card alteration, shill bidding, stolen cards, fake autographs, "game used" jerseys that really aren't, etc. But, to me, if altered and/or marked cards are being overgraded by PSA/SGC that is the single "bad act" that can ruin the hobby through erosion of confidence ultimately cost a lot of people lots of money.

As a relatively new person to the hobby, I put faith in the grades PSA/SGC give. I don't buy ungraded cards just because I know I don't have the knowledge to determine if a card is fake, altered, etc.

High priced cards / expensive autographs should be given extra scrutiny by the grading companies, even if it means a higher cost to do so.